In defense of the California math teacher whose problematic lesson is accused of committing ‘violence’
If you haven’t seen it already, I apologize in advance for bringing to your attention this sad episode in our ongoing national struggle to be as woke as possible.
A math teacher in Riverside, California, is being excoriated for a silly lesson she taught where she danced around in a manner offensive to Native Americans.
Here’s what she did:
Copied:
Yesterday a Native American student filmed this video in his Math class. After several minutes of the teacher “war hooping & tomahawk chopping” the student began filming because he, “felt that violence was being committed against him and he had the right to record.” pic.twitter.com/4zvFS6JfPw— Iviviq ᐃᕕᕕᖅ ❄️ (@UrbanInuk) October 21, 2021
I’m not going to defend what she did, I think it was ill-advised. She seems like a youngish teacher, and by now, we all know what sorts of things get us in trouble in our increasingly woke society.
But, I will defend her against the insane and absurd claim that she somehow committed “violence” by her actions and speech.
She should not have done what she did, but she should apologize, we should accept her apology and we should all just move on.
I was raised in Southern California, and I was lucky enough to have incredible, wonderful teachers. Most of them were white, and I was one of the few, sometimes solitary, Hispanic kids in our advanced math classes.
When I see the video of what this woman did, I’m not offended as a person of Native American ancestry. I know that she’s is not *intending* to hurt anyone. It’s a little cringy and ill advised. That’s it.
Anyone who has taught math knows exactly what she’s doing. SOH CAH TOA is a mnemonic device to help students remember the three trigonometric functions, and she is using this silly dance to help kids remember it. But the way it’s being portrayed by the woke mob on social media is as if her primary intention was to mock Native American culture.
Ironically, the very fact that we have to obsess over unintentionally offensive episodes like this shows just how much progress we’ve made in this country to stamp out racism. Now the pendulum is swinging far too wide the other way. We’re rewarding children by making them into media heroes when they swoon at the slightest offense and destroy otherwise decent people.
If there is no other indication that this teacher has been discriminatory to her students, let her apologize, and let’s all move on.
